Just think how awful it would be if you sent off your sample only to have the agent of your dreams call and request the full mss asap, and you have to tell him that it would be another year before s/he could see it?

*hangs head in shame*

I did this! You'd think with my background I'd have a tiny ounce of sense about this, and honestly I don't know what possessed me (okay, sheer stupidity) but I sent three chapters of an unfinished novel to Curtis Brown a few years ago and Ali Gunn (who isn't there any more; I think she eventually set up on her own) requested the full.

Oops. I wrote some crappy letter apologising.

It spooked me so much that I never finished the novel.

And yet Rosemary Canter phoned me to ask for the full ms of a novel I wrote and when I was initially reluctant (another agent was looking at it), she asked me if I'd finished it (I had) and didn't seem at all phased at the idea that I might not have.

(She read it and rejected it!)

Funny that, because I approached her with completed work, but it was some other incomplete work she was interested in and took me on for. 'Course we know how that story ended! I really am a dolt.

It is one of my worst nightmares to have a full requested, turn to my computer to make a print out, and find its gone, gone gone.

This actually happened - not the request for a full, but a laptop was stolen with 90k words of a novel on it. The disk that the novel was backed up on was in the laptop. I couldn't talk about it for weeks!

I know better now, and back up obsessivley.

Anyway - back to the point...

B

Well, basically, Emma has it right as usual.

If you want the best possible price for your book, a detailed outline and your best opening will give agents a sniff of what might be there. If there's interest you will also find there will be advice on how you might complete the story.

If you want to write for any other reason than your best possible deal...then finish the book!

And Stephen King, one of the most commercial writers ever, claims not to plan or plot!

<Added>

Meant to include Emma's quote:

I suppose it depends whether you're writing a book to make money by whatever means, or because you have something to say, and you're looking for the opportunity to be allowed to say it.

In a general way, a propos agents, I would be very wary of anyone who wasn't a member of the Association of Author's Agents. I think some new agents who've left to start up on their own may not be members, but just about everyone else is. Certainly an established agent who isn't a member isn't one for a very good reason...

Emma

I made it a point of ensuring that everyone I submitted to was a member of that thing, Emma. It seems very dodgy tome if they're not.

Myrtle, an agent from Ed Victor requested my full ms after reading the first thirty pages. I didn't have the rest, and said, 'I'm very sorry. I think I sent it to you prematurely.' And she said, 'Never mind. There are no deadlines. Send me the rest whenever you're ready.'

I think it's important not to be afraid of these people (she says).

I think it's important not to be afraid of these people

I'll give it a go but I can't promise anything.

Like Maria, I several times had agents asking, 'Is it finished?' when they requested the full ms. So it canlt be that unusual. But I would never have done it in a million years. Too superstitious - too much pressure. If they'd asked to see more I just know I would have frozen and become incapable of writing another word!

Rosy.

I didn't have the rest, and said, 'I'm very sorry. I think I sent it to you prematurely.' And she said, 'Never mind. There are no deadlines. Send me the rest whenever you're ready.'

Which is fine. The big mistake is to hurry over finishing it. Of course, one risk is that when you finally do send it, along with the letter that reminds them that they did ask for it, the agent turns out to have moved on...

If they'd asked to see more I just know I would have frozen and become incapable of writing another word!

And this is horribly, horribly true of many writers.

Seriously, I know of one writer who wrote the first chapters of something very weird and wonderful while they were at university, got a thumping advance on the basis of them, and couldn't write the rest.

Had to give the advance back. And it's a small trade. I don't suppose anyone's going to give him/her another contract in a hurry.

Emma

I know of one writer who wrote the first chapters of something very weird and wonderful while they were at university, got a thumping advance on the basis of them, and couldn't write the rest

I've heard that this is why agents and publishers do want to see the whole book (almost) immediately when it's fiction, especially if you have no track record, because lots of people write the opening chapters of a novel but many of them don't ever finish it. It's far easier to write just a beginning rather than the whole thing, surely, even though I realise the beginning needs to be pretty damned good to attract an agent's or publisher's interest.

Obviously if you've already had one or more good novels published they'd be more likely to trust you could repeat the trick. And as someone else discussed, I know it's often different for non-fiction.

Deb

I was wondering whether to ask my agent if it would be possible to get my next novel (not the WIP, which is sold, except in the US) commissioned on the basis of chapters-and-sample. But a) I don't think it's even hard to do this with literary-ish fiction, where concept and plot (which can be explained in synopsis) is a smaller proportion of the overall quality of the book (which can't).

And b) I think I'd actually rather write the whole thing first, even if it means some much-needed money coming in much later. It may be longer before I get the cheque, but I won't have anyone breathing down my neck, or a deadline, or any of the things which are making the WIP such a bugger.

Emma

<Added>

tsk! But a) I think it's even harder to do